I am finding helping out elderly and unwell parents is utterly, utterly draining and ruining my life as it currently stands.

[Picklingwalnuts]

I feel awful writing this but I secretly resent my parents atm. I am a bad person to think this, let alone put it into words.

My parents are in their early 80's. They live around the corner from me and I have always been close to them.

In 2018 my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. For the first couple of years things weren't too bad but when Covid and the lockdowns hit my dad kind of went to pieces, all the dementia support networks shut down or became non-existent, there was little outside help for people with dementia. So, during this time I found myself doing a lot more to help and drip, drip, drip without giving it much thought as it happened so slowly I found myself doing more and more for them and it is completely and utterly draining.

I have my own family (two teens), a dh, and my own life that I somehow need to find time for. I have some chronic health issues (which have been greatly exacerbated with the stress of caring for elderly parents) and I am smack bang in perimenopause which I could seriously do without at this time of my life.

Admittedly, I have taken a bit of a backseat from the things I was doing a few years ago but I am still round theirs 4-5 times a week. There always seems to be something that needs doing and dad refuses to pay out any more than the one hour per day carer who comes in to help shower and dress mum in the mornings (mums AA pays for the majority of this though). If he wants to go food shopping or pop out somewhere he relies on me or my sister to sit with mum so he can do this. He will not pay for a sit in service and resents paying out for any extra help even though he has hundreds of thousands in the bank (I understand that he is anxious to keep hold of this should mum need to go into a care home, I get that). My sister does all the housework (I refuse to do this as they have the money for a cleaner) but I still change the bed sheets, change towels (dad would leave them for weeks and weeks), take mum to her day centre twice a week, make her packed lunch, sit with mum so dad can go food shopping, order all mums prescriptions, take mum to hospital and doctors appointments etc....there always seems to be something which needs doing, arranging or sorting out.

I suppose I could have put up with this if it had only lasted a year or two but despite an additional health diagnosis of breast cancer last year my poor old mum keeps on going.

I do feel for my dad, it is completely heartwrenching watching my mum struggle with such a terrible disease like this and become someone I don't recognise and that must be a hundred times worse for my dad but I can't help but resent the fact that he naturally assumes because he has two daughters living close by they should automatically do everything for him.

I lost my job in November, he never once asks me how I am actually surviving without an income. I am currently looking for work and worry how they will cope once I am back working (sister works full time so she can't always be round).

Mum went into respite a few weeks ago to give dad a break but she went down hill and has only just perked up so he is refusing to consider a care home anymore but he will not consider additional care at home either, I have suggested live in carers as they have a huge house which could even have an annexe converted in it but he is refusing to have anyone live in his house. He is simply buying his head in the sand and not looking into the future at all. Mum still recognises us and is quite jolly within herself etc but its 7 years into this disease and she will get much worse but he still won't discuss any future plans.

Is this a common thing for older people to assume their children will automatically step up and care for them in old age? I love them dearly but I never signed up for this, it feels as though it was thrust upon me. One thing it has taught me though and that is the fact I will NEVER expect my dc to look after me, ever.

You'll be stuck with this until you say 'no'.

Could you happen to find a new job which - cough, cough - unfortunately has terribly unpredictable hours, and you're awfully sorry but it means you'll no longer be available to help out 😉

why don’t you show your sister this thread? It might sway her, and once she’s on board you can present a united front. It might also highlight to you just how desperate you are - if you stop being involved more will fall to her, which probably wont be welcome.

@ThisCyanBee he won’t pay even for proper carers at home though, or cleaners. I didn’t get the impression that the OP was talking about financing a care home for her mother (though she may need it one day); she was talking about paying for help care at home. A care home situation may never arise - but in the meantime assistance the father could easily and cheaply provide at home is being refused.

Also, well~off elderly parents can simply be tight fisted with their money, even hoarders - it has nothing to do with considering the future of others or wanting to save money to help their partner, or family in general. We don’t know his motivations, but it’s worth noting that the father in this case hasn’t even enquired how the OP is managing financially when she lost her job a few months ago.

It won't get better and it will get harder. Sorry to be blunt but I've been through it and it was the hardest thing I've done.

I don't regret or begrudge caring for my DM at all, but it was unbelievably soul destroyingly hard and emotionally it's wrecked me.

It's hard now but it will get worse. The good days will become fewer and the amount of time and effort needed will become 24/7. For the last couple of years my DM could not be left alone including at night as she would wander and fall.

You have to be firm. Unless you are able to look after her full time - or agree a carer pattern with your sister than means you can cover it between you - then they will need help. It's non negotiable and if that means you have to leave your Dad to his own devices for a stretch so that reality sinks in, then so be it. If your sister wants to bend to it then you have to let her sink alongside him for her to realise this. I know it's shit but that's the reality.

I really hope you get somewhere with her and your Dad. And I hope that your Mum gets the help she needs. Daily carer visits were a lifeline for us, as in the last couple of years trying to do my DM's personal care was really hard, and an extra pair of experienced hands was a huge help.

@Brendathebridesmaid

if you stop being involved more will fall to her

We tried that with MIL to get OH's sister more involved but she didn't step up at all, and made things worse because minor tasks we'd ask her to do weren't done or were done wrong, so we ended up doing more ourselves, i.e. dealing with her cock ups. I'm convinced she fouled things up deliberately to get out of her responsibilities. Things like putting the wrong bins out on bin day despite there being the council's chart on the fridge door, or taking her shopping but buying the wrong brands that she wouldn't eat. We asked her to sort out a gardener as she said she knew someone, but the year passed and she didn't do it so we had to find a garden firm who'd do a full garden clearance for the Winter. Even putting the washing in the washing machine was beyond her - she'd either forget or put it on the wrong setting or "forget" to put washing powder in! As I say, sometimes we wondered if she was deliberately being useless so we'd stop asking her to do things.

I had the same with my dad, OP. I looked after him when he was terminally ill. He could still do things for himself, especially during his first year of treatment, and was OK to go out and about socialising, but he wanted me to do everything for him. My sister and I really had to twist his arm to use his attendance allowance to get some outside help. I WFH so was with him quite a lot, but my job is very demanding, very meeting-heavy, and needs my full attention during work hours. I'm often exhausted after work. But he wanted me to do all the cooking, cleaning, organising, and medical stuff on top of my job. It was killing me. We did eventually get help, but it was a struggle. And when the outside help wasn't there, I had to get him every drink and snack, and breakfast and lunch (the aide did his dinner) even though he had a perfectly good pair of legs. It did feel very sexist and I ended up feeling very used.

So, just to say, you are not alone with this, OP.

I sympathise with you. So did your parents get the 3x free care after all?

OP I think it sounds like you and your dad and sister need to sit down together and you need to write everything down you want to say and don’t stop until it’s all said and done do you have a partner (forgive me if I’ve missed that). If so, they need to be there too.

Drop your sister in it with you ‘xxx does your cleaning but hates doing it and resents it dad’. Be brutally honest about your financial situation ‘it has been 5 months since I received an income. I am struggling terribly and am not coping’ - lay it on thick. ‘The house is smelling damp and musty. It smells like old people who have no money live here. Your towels and bedding smell dad’ etc. Leave no ambiguity. Little kindness has been shown to you, you can afford to be honest.

Your dad will be the same level of upset about you suggesting a gardener as he will domiciliary care - so you may as well really go for it. Explain that you can see another 15 years of this, and currently don’t have another 15 days in you.

@redphonecase - slightly off topic. But in Feb last year my father ended up in hospital. I was adamant that he had to have a package of care to go home. He was clearly struggling cognitively & physically. They knew I didn't live in home town. One afternoon they called me work & told me my father was being discharged that afternoon. He was 91, it was February & he had no clothes, no shoes, no money & no door key. I had removed them all as he didn't have a locker. There was no one at home, the heating wasn't on & there was no food in the fridge. They didn't give a shit & discharged him anyway without a package of care. So don't spout rubbish.

Who let him in? You, I assume. If you hadn't, he'd have been back in hospital as a failed discharge and they'd have had to sort out a proper care package. I'm sorry that happened, it's awful, I see it all the time at work.

Yup. Exactly.

Not silly, that one, is she?

@redphonecase - I live over 200 miles away. I said that earlier. So it couldn't have been me. So now you say you see it all the time at work & before you said services would step in. This is rubbish.

My parents didn’t linger fortunately, they were very fit and then ill and then died quite quickly. My Father refused cancer treatment, he was in his mid eighties. So had just six months of failing health. My Grandmother was even fitter, walking a few miles with my cousin and then just slipping off this mortal coil with immediacy a couple of days later. She was ex military and a force of nature.

Lay it on the line with your Father, he needs a cleaner, one that does bed changes and also a sitter so he can pop out. I lived many miles from my parents so couldn’t have looked after them even if required.

Yes, but I think a lot of elderly people actually lose sight of "why" they were saving money or even forget the value of money. Certainly, my MIL couldn't rationalise the amount of money she had in her various bank accounts. She thought she was poor because all she could understand was the notes and coins in her purse. Numbers on a bank statement or passbook had no meaning to her. That started in the early days of her dementia when she was otherwise pretty normally functioning, doing her own shopping, looking after herself and her home, etc., managing and understanding money was the first thing to go really. She stopped being able to write a cheque and nor could she understand debit/credit cards. We worked out that she'd somehow regressed to her childhood where it was all physical cash and there were no cards, cheque books nor bank accounts! So she had huge amounts in her bank accounts, but she couldn't understand that, so she scrimped and saved. We'd take her every week to the cash machine to withdraw cash, but she couldn't understand where it was coming from and was frightened to spend it as she thought it was all she had, so she'd "hide" some all over the house and then forget where she'd hidden it. Dementia is an awful thing. But even people without dementia, i.e. my own mother, had similar traits - she'd parrot the hard up line all the time, but we were astonished after she'd died to see how much money she had in various bank accounts which were never touched, just with interest accruing going back years. I do think that in both cases, they were widows after their respective husbands had died young and there was a kind of "missing link" with them not understanding where the money had come from, and a feeling that it wasn't "their" money because it was originally from their husbands, so they didn't think it was theirs to spend.

I agree with this.
You are not a bad person op you have however (inadvertently) made some bad decisions i.e living close to your parents! This is part of what enables your father to unthinkingly assume that you will pick up all the slack for him.

You have posted about this before a number of times - not judging, just pointing it out- and I believe the reason you keep doing it is because you don’t want your DM to suffer for it. However unsanitary as it sounds she probably won’t even notice a few weeks of dirty sheets and towels. I would only do those tasks that directly benefit her and stop all others. Tell your Dsis what you are doing , it’s pointless telling your F.

Harden yourself to what he might say, what do you think of him with his thousands in the bank, letting his DDs skivvy for him. Focus on getting a job that’s what is important.

I agree he needs a cleaner and, while I’m not unsympathetic to you op, it sounds to me as though your sister has an even worse load having to clean a house that size.

If you take that load off her, perhaps she can share sone of what falls to you?

This might not be possible, or sound distasteful, but if your DF is adamant about not paying for cleaning, could you and your sister cover it for now and recoup from his estate - I mean it sounds as though there will be plenty of money left with your df holding the purse strings!

So who let him in if he had no key? Who looked after him at home?

excellent sense here. OP sending you a massive handhold and some advice from being a caring daughter myself (sibs did chip in equally as well) and also a health professional. Decide what will be EASY for you to do. Don't decide what the most you can do is because you will need some headroom for emergencies and you need me time. Sit down with your Dad and your sister and tell him clearly that this is what you can give. This is not the business of your sister or anyone else, this is YOUR decision. If you are feeling kind you can offer to help him to look at the options to do whatever else they need but that option is NOT your doing more. I get you may feel that you can't say "starting from now" although it would be fair enough if you did but do set a cut oiff point when you will reduce your support. I'd suggest 2 weeks to a month. Stop trying to get your father to make decisions with you, leave it to your sister.

This.

He needs to see he has two choices; 1. a care home or 2. bring in carers.

He will only see that once his favoured option - his daughters do everything - is no longer available.

no this is NOT a good idea. It won't make the work and stress go away.....and if he leaves his money to the cat's home, they will be stuffed.

But Dsis doesn’t have to clean the house, she is choosing to. If neither OP nor her Dsis clean the house then the F has no option but to employ a cleaner.

And as for doing it in the hope they might get some inheritance in the future, well firstly OP needs some income now in the form of a job and that should be her priority and secondly the money could and probably should be used up to give DM the residential care she needs.

I completely agree with you - these are my views exactly.
Sorry OP, I really do feel for you, it’s so difficult. As others have said, I’m afraid you’re going to have to start setting boundaries. You’ll make yourself ill.

OP, your first duty is not to your DH and DCs. It's to yourself.
You can - and almost certainly need to - step back to protect your own physical, emotional and mental health.
Decide what you're going to do, and first tell your sister. Then tell your parents. Your sister can carry on with her contributions if she wants to, but filling the gap is not your responsibility (though suggestions upthread about getting care agency details means you're not actually abandoning them).